A quarter of Australian parents give in to pestering children at supermarkets

A QUARTER of Australian parents give in to the relentless “pester power” of their children during shopping trips — far, far fewer than our US counterparts.

CALLIE WATSON HEALTH REPORTER

The AdvertiserJune 2, 201410:58pm

A QUARTER of Australian parents give in to the relentless “pester power” of their children, who demand a product every three minutes during shopping trips, a study has found.

Senior Research Associate Bill Page, from UniSA’s Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, recorded more than 1800 hours of footage over 12 days at four large supermarkets in Sydney and Adelaide to examine how parents and their children interact at the shops.

The footage showed mums and dads, who gave permission for the recordings, giving in to their children’s requests 26 per cent of the time.

Mr Page said the figure was much lower than a comparative study of US parents, which showed children there were handed the things they asked for 97 per cent of the time.

He defined “pester power” as any sort of request made for a product and said examining in detail what children asked for was the next step of his research.

Initial viewings of the recordings show they weren’t always after sugary treats, but foods such as grapes and yoghurt.

“Kids’ pestering can be quite stressful or even embarrassing for parents, who may be on a tight budget and are trying to get in and out of the supermarket quickly,” Mr Page says.

“What we found though is that Australian parents give in a lot less than we expected.”

Children asked for something to be put in their parents’ trolley once every three minutes throughout the research, compared to once every one minute and 15 seconds in the US.

Both Australian and US parents averaged one “conflict”, which included crying, whingeing, screaming and temper tantrums, with their children every seven minutes and 42 seconds.

Deakin University advertising and consumer behaviour senior lecturer Paul Harrison said retailers devoted ample time to making their products attractive to children and, in turn, through their nagging, to parents.

“There’s a lot of different strategies used, from placing products children will find appealing at their height, to getting the eyes of characters on packaging looking down directly at them to using bright lights,” he said.

“There’s an argument that ultimately it’s up to parents to say no, but there’s millions invested in achieving pester power and understanding how it works.

“We also know parents are more likely to respond to their child’s needs in a shopping centre, when there’s a lot of light, noise and the social expectations of keeping the kids happy.”

Dr Harrison listed avoiding shopping when children are hungry as one key to limiting pester power.